


Choices

by sunshinemellow



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24519037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinemellow/pseuds/sunshinemellow
Summary: Sakura is forced to make a decision that results in the death of a team member. Kakashi can relate."Her eyes were like knives—sharp, laced with fury. She seemed to bristle at his presence, but he noticed the vagueness in her expression, the clumsy way her index finger was tapping smeared fingerprints on sides of her glass. She’d had enough. In more ways than one."
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	Choices

When Tsunade called him into her office, he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. He knew Sakura’s two month mission was supposed to end that day, but he didn’t dare think his being summoned and Sakura’s return had anything in common.

A part of him was afraid Tsunade had noticed the general crabbiness he had assumed when he was deprived of his usual training partner and the person who helped him write the reports he was frankly getting too tired to write himself. He hoped Tsunade hadn’t put two and two together, just as he wished that he hadn’t realized during the third quiet week of Sakura’s absence that his life was undeniably and irrevocably better with her in it. He still wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information, other than bury it under the massive pile of repressed garbage at the back of his mind which threatened to teeter over with the newly introduced instability each day. 

He trudged into the familiar office with an air of apprehension. Tsunade had been giving him not so subtle hints that she expected him to inherit the mantle soon. It had been several years since the war, enough time for his general slipperiness and evasion tactics to start failing. He couldn’t help but wonder if today was the day she would corner him once and for all.

“Kakashi,” Tsunade said to him when he walked in as greeting. He inclined his head and sat in the chair that she gestured towards. From the tone of her voice, he had a feeling that lingering uncomfortably in the doorway wouldn’t have been as effective as it usually was at cutting meetings short.

Tsunade sighed and studied him over steepled fingers. He noticed that the wall by the door had a fresh hole in it, the creaking pieces of wood still crumbling softly. He wondered if and why she had put it there.

“We have a problem,” she finally said.

“What kind of problem?”

Tsunade hesitated. “A problem with Sakura.”

Instantly he felt something primal in him flare to life—worry, concern, anger—already the visions of her ANBU mission going horribly wrong had begun to flash rapidly in his mind. He had just opened his mouth to try and (casually) ask if she had gone MIA, or if god forbid her mission had failed and she had—

“It’s none of that,” Tsunade snapped at him, seeming to read his mind. “She’s back like she is supposed to be. Who do you think gave me the nice new hole in a perfectly good wall?”

Kakashi internally cursed himself for being so obvious. His mask didn’t cover both of his eyes anymore, and he was sick of accidentally revealing too much in them. He remembered the curious look Sakura had given him when he had ground out a tense “good luck” before she left for the _classified_ mission she was prohibited from telling him about. He’d spent the next week in a quiet panic wondering if she had seen something in his eyes he had been trying to hide—the guilt, the concern, his self-loathing.

“What is wrong with Sakura,” he finally managed in a carefully controlled voice, consciously trying to wipe all emotion from his face.

“There was a problem on her mission.”

Kakashi waited for her to elaborate, not wanting to reveal more of the latent panic flickering at the back of his mind.

“I’d sent her and three other teammates—one extra addition to her pre-existing team due to the severity of the circumstances. Only three of them made it back. A teammate died.”

Kakashi lowered his gaze. Already he was trying to smother the residual grief that sentence dredged up. _A teammate died._

“So she is upset about the death of her teammate?”

Tsunade glowered. “When Sakura was _my_ student I prepared her for the potential death of members of her team. God knows she has seen enough people die over the last decade that she wouldn’t be incapacitated by the loss of someone she had only worked with for three months.”

Kakashi just nodded. He knew he had never been a real teacher to Sakura, despite the fact that she had somehow ascended rapidly through the ranks and challenges presented to her. The most he could claim was that he had given her a team, a home. The fierce need to protect those she considered her own. Now nearly a decade had passed since those days and she was a blood and gore-stained veteran of a war. Those times felt so far away that they seemed almost like a dream.

“She was upset about the _way_ the teammate had died.” Tsunade leaned back with a sigh. “Generally medic-nin don’t make the rank of ANBU. The combat training isn’t really up to par with what they face. Of course, Sakura is the glaring exception, but that exceptionality proved difficult during this mission.

“What happened?”

“A member of her team was wounded. Severely. Sakura started to treat him, and would have been able to bring him back from the brink if she had been given the time. But as she tried to heal him the fight continued. Her other two teammates started to become overwhelmed.”

Kakashi felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. “She was given a choice.”

“Yes,” Tsunade said, in an uncharacteristically soft voice. “Stop healing and rejoin the fight, or continue healing and watch the others die. This is why I made the rules when I established the system.”

Kakashi vaguely remembered the three rules followed by medic-nin who had not mastered the Ninja Art Creation Rebirth.

“No medic ninja shall ever stop treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end,” he repeated from memory.

Tsunade gave him a tired look. “Don’t forget the big one.”

He averted his eyes. “No medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines.”

“I warned her she would encounter a situation like this someday. It is difficult to contain the knowledge of both healing and destruction. It is a hard and sharp line to walk.”

Kakashi nodded. He had often wondered what it was like for Sakura to feel life fade away from her fingertips when she crushed them through the flesh of her opponents, and what it was like to feel life fade from a patient she was trying to revive. In more ways than one she was a walking paradox.

“So she feels guilty about her decision to return to the fight and save her other teammates?”

Tsunade let out a grim laugh. “Well, she put that hole in that wall when I implied that was the case. I would say she is still in the denial phase. She hasn’t quite accepted the choice she made, or that she had to make the choice in the first place.”

“Why do you think I can help,” he asked bluntly. Immediately warning bells went off in his head, and he regretted having asked. He didn’t want Tsunade, or anyone else for that matter, carefully considering his relationship with Sakura.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m under no illusion that you’re still a teacher figure to her. I was able to reverse the consequences of the neglect from the time she spent under your _instruction_ , or lack thereof.”

He winced, knowing she was right.

“However…” Tsunade eyed him. “I’ve noticed you have become a source of comfort for one another over the last few years. You have a more coherent relationship as equals and comrades than you ever did as teacher and student. I, unfortunately, am still an authority figure to her. It is easier to be angry with the people who send you on missions than with the people who fight with you on them.”

He felt himself stiffen, dreading that she would close in on what he was trying to deny even to himself. He forced his face blank and open.

“Quite frankly it isn’t my business what your relationship with Sakura is, as long as you both continue to perform well on the missions I send you on together. You are both, how should I say this— _grown-ups._ ”

He smothered his desire to jab back, which would only reveal how sensitive the issue was for him. Let her pretend the dangled knowledge was false, that he could care less.

“You want me to check-in on her.”

Tsunade nodded. “I knew you would without my intervention. You two are close. However, I wanted you to know what had happened before you sought her out. You needed the full story to help her with this.”

He nodded stiffly and stood. “I’ll take care of it.”

Tsunade gave him a knowing smile. “I’m sure you will.”

He managed to keep his face blank, but wasn’t able to stop himself from slamming the door a little more harshly than necessary.

Tsunade watched a little more debris tumble from the hole Sakura had left in the wall as the slam echoed in the new emptiness of her office. A soft and rueful smile touched her face. To be angry, and to be in love, she mused, was the greatest indulgence.

* * *

He was surprised when he sensed her chakra signature at the skeevy bar that Genma managed to haul him to on a bimonthly basis.

He’d seen Sakura there a few times—never by herself—always with Ino or another gaggle of friends from their cohort. He would incline his head slightly when her eyes found him in the dim lighting. And she would smile, softly, knowingly, in the yellow glow of the greasy candles guttering in the walls. He’d eventually sidle over, they’d share a minute or two of easy conversation, and then he would fade slowly back into the background. He’d watch her roll her eyes at something Naruto or Ino had shouted, and ignore the lingering gazes of some of the few remaining single men in their circle. Eventually the golden rises and hollows of her face would prove too tempting—he would down his sour beer, clap Genma on the shoulder with a cordial finality, and wind his way out of the bar and back to his apartment where he would lie in bed hating himself. He was never sure if it was because of his own paralysis or inability to act, or the desire to act in the first place.

This time as he entered the grimy little place, he didn’t find her sitting at the center of a golden hum of activity and surrounded by friends. Instead, he found her curled around a glass of dark liquor in the corner of a booth. He thought that nearly every shinobi he had known had found their way to that position one way or another at some point in their lives, but it looked so breathtakingly wrong on her.

He made his way over and slid into the seat opposite to her. Her head flashed up and her eyes were like knives—sharp, laced with fury. She seemed to bristle at his presence, but he noticed the vagueness in her expression, the clumsy way her index finger was tapping smeared fingerprints on the sides of her glass. She’d had enough. In more ways than one.

“What are you doing here,” she snapped. He was somewhat impressed she had managed to both slur and express indignation.

“I’m here for a teammate,” he replied.

She barked an uncharacteristic laugh. “Where,” she asked, with exaggerated curiosity. “I don’t see one around.”

It was a low blow, but he supposed he couldn’t expect any graciousness from her in her current state. “Sakura, I have always considered myself to be on your team,” he said quietly.

“Well,” she mumbled, taking another bitter sip of her drink. “I would watch out if I were you.” She gave him a comically conspiratorial eyebrow raise. “People on my teams tend to have bad things happen to them. Haven’t thought about going rogue recently, have you, Kakashi?” She cracked her drink down on the table and he watched it slosh over her fingers. “Or maybe, just maybe, you’re planning on getting gored by something on your next mission?”

He remained silent as her sharp eyes shifted over his face.

“Tell me,” she whispered harshly. “What’s wrong with you? There seems to be something wrong with just about everybody I touch nowadays. Come on, how have I managed to fuck you up?”

He just stared. Not in surprise, or in judgement. Simply in the sad knowledge that she had indeed managed to ‘fuck him up.’ He knew she had from the moment he’d walked in and seen pink hair still caked with grime and dirt, and wanted nothing more than to simply help her clean it. Maybe this, he thinks, is what Naruto felt all those years ago. He himself had never, obviously, felt any attraction to her then. But now that she was an adult and sitting before him laced with scars and venom, he still found himself captivated by the green of her eyes. He wondered if this is what had made him hate her so much. If this was why he had tried to kill her—so that he never had to suffer the raw accusation in her green eyes again.

Of course, Sasuke hadn’t killed her. But then again, he had never been able to tolerate having her around much anyways. Kakashi wondered if that is why he left.

“Asshole,” Sakura suddenly snapped, and he was jolted from the disastrous turn his thoughts had taken.

“I’m sorry, Sakura, I just—”

“I don’t want your pity.”

He held back a cringe. “I think,” he began slowly, “that you think I have come here to judge you, Sakura. And I haven’t. I’ve never really earned the right to.”

He felt a brief surge of relief as some of the hardness in her eyes crumbled away a bit, only to be replaced with an edge of the raw and palpable pain he knew she was smothering.

“I don’t want to be told I made the right choice,” she finally said. “I cannot believe that there was a right choice.”

He nodded. His mind tugged towards the death of another teammate, a moment where he hadn’t had a choice, but _no_ , that was not why he was here and not how he could help.

“I think what you did is something many others would have done.”  
  
“But how many others have _had_ to do it?” she demanded.

He blinked at the sudden anguish in her face.

“When he was lying there, bleeding, he looked up at me and I could see in his face how badly he wanted to live.” She took a shaky breath. “And don’t think I’m some idiot—I know most people would prefer to live than die. But when you… when you heal people. You can tell which ones are desperate to get their second chance.”

He watched as her eyes brimmed over, tears cutting tracks through the dust still on her face. “He wanted to live, and I knew I could give that to him. I could have given him that. But I didn’t. I chose to withhold it.”

“Sakura, you didn’t—”

“You don’t understand,” she snapped. “You don’t know what it means to have something so necessary, so precious to someone, only to withhold it from them.”

Her eyes darted back to his and she gave him a quick, nearly nonexistent grimace. “But then again, Kakashi, you just might.”

With that she folded her head into her arms and rested it on the table, shoulders shaking. He reached out a tentative hand and laid it on the warm skin of her shoulder. After a long silence, he finally found words for the painful stream of memory and new trauma swirling about his head.

“I want you to know, Sakura, I think you may possibly be the bravest person I’ve met.” He felt her breathing still under his hand and it gave him the small bite of courage that he needed to keep speaking. “I lost my own teammate. Felt her die against my fingertips long, long ago. But I don’t know how I would have…” he trailed off, the words feeling like garbled glass in his mouth. “How I would have been able to show up for the mission at all knowing that someone I could have saved would end up dying simply because it would be the right thing to do. And that I would be the one who had denied them the opportunity to live.”

He felt a wetness gathering at the corner of his eye, an old grief dredged up once more. He forced himself to stare hard at the dirt on the table, willing the sting at the edges of his vision to fade away. “But this is the knowledge you’ve lived with on each mission since you’ve learned to heal. I am sorry you’ve lived with that.”

He felt a warm hand sticky and sour with alcohol press against his cheek. He looked back at Sakura and found tears streaming down her face, but a smile nonetheless. It was bittersweet and small smile, a recognition of shared grief. Relief that even in the midst of the trauma, there was one person capable of comprehending, even if only a little.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured.

He felt something inside him crack.

He buried his face in his hands, and for the first time in a long time, the memory always drifting at the edges of his mind grew a little further away. A little lighter.

A little easier to bear.

A hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezed tightly, insistently. “We should go home.”

* * *

He helped her back to her apartment with his shoulder occasionally supporting her weight. She was drunk, but he was sure to most she was still lethal.

They stumbled up the stairs of her apartment building, and he was nearly ready to give her a last ill-fated brush of his fingers against her cheek before he left her there, but she grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly enough that it might have been a little painful. He wasn’t sure.

“Can you stay with me?”

He closed his eyes and thought of all the people had never stayed for Sakura. 

Without a second thought, he followed her into her apartment. They silently removed their sandals in unison and he followed her to the rumpled mess of her bed. He watched her crawl in, thinking again about how badly he would have liked to smooth out the dirt and blood caked in her hair. She was an earthquake of a woman, in some ways still all blood and gore, and in others heartbreakingly gentle.

She stared at him imploringly from underneath the blankets. He could see the purple bruises continuing to darken on her cheek and forehead, and the pale black of new sleepless circles under her eyes.

“Can you just… can you just sleep here, too? Please?”

Before he could think about it, he had slid under the covers, careful not to touch her. And still without the chance to think about what a fantastically horrible idea this all was, he found that a she had wound around him, her head in the crook of his shoulder and her arm resting lightly on his chest.

He closed his eyes and breathed in.

As they nodded off to sleep he couldn’t help but think of ugly and stupid metaphors, as he always did when confronted with what seemed almost too impossible to bear. He wondered if they would emerge from the chrysalis of this cocoon of grief as something new, something more beautiful.

He shifted deeper into the quiet stillness of blankets and the solid grip of her arms, and he realized that he certainly hoped so

**Author's Note:**

> There were so many kind words on what I posted earlier this week-- it made me so happy and so grateful. It has been so nice to return to an old hobby. Thank you for reading!


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